


Let's just let go

by someinstant



Series: Kinetics [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Gen, Pre-Relationship, RPF, awkward teenage nonsense, figure skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 19:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14063439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someinstant/pseuds/someinstant
Summary: She can have a crisis quietly like a civilized person, thanks.





	Let's just let go

**Author's Note:**

> I believe I promised some folks the story of the Great Oh No He’s Hot Freakout of 2006. Which means that this story is, I suppose, a prequel to _We were never more here_ , but you absolutely don’t have to read that one for this to make sense.
> 
> And, as per usual: this is not real. At all. Like infrastructure week, it is a constructed narrative which has no basis in reality. So Ms. Virtue, Mr. Moir (although, let’s be real, I could just address this to Tessa, because she would clearly be the one to continue, right? Scott would backspace out so fast he’d dislocate a finger): if you’re reading this, please know that I understand the difference between fiction and reality, and am essentially harmless outside of the page. Please accept my apologies.

It isn’t her _fault_ , she thinks, and shuts the bedroom door, careful not to slam it-- she can have a crisis quietly like a civilized person, thanks.  She drops her skate bag by the closet, sits on the edge of her bed, heavy with exhaustion and anxiety and an uncomfortable warmth in her stomach. It’s too soft, this bed, and the coverlet feels rough and pilled because her host mother uses the wrong kind of detergent or softener or something.  She misses her bed in London, her comforter, her pillows, her mum, Juniors, Scott before his voice broke, and all at once she’s swamped with the worst possible wave of exhaustion and homesickness and panic.  

She flops backwards.  The springs creak, and she reaches for a pillow.  Covers her face with it, like if she hides it’ll maybe all go away.  It’s-- it’s just hormones, she tells herself. It’s normal, just bodies, like Scott said last year, and Meryl’s teasing has been putting ideas in her head, and her blue dress doesn’t have a back, and it has nothing to do with his hands and the changing line of his jaw, and--

Breathe, she thinks, and tries a slow inhale.  Exhale. Then she remembers that she needs to finish up a problem set for chem tomorrow and wants to cry, because kinetics is terrible. _Everything_ is terrible.  She thinks about calling Jordan, because she misses her, too, but that’s an awful idea, because Jordan will absolutely know the moment she opens her mouth.  She’s worse than kinetics.

She calls Jordan, anyway, because the alternative is doing her homework or thinking about Scott, and she really can’t take any more chemistry.

-*-

She manages to fake her way through the first ten minutes of her conversation with her sister well enough, probably because Jordan sounds as tired and distracted as Tessa feels.  Apparently this has something to do with the guy who sits in front of Jordan in her cultural anthropology class.

“If you want to gauge your ears,” Jordan’s in the middle of saying, “that’s totally cool. Whatever does it for you. But, like,” she says, and there’s a slow roll to her vowels that makes Tessa wonder if Jordan’s been drinking or something, “I feel like there’s an implicit social contract that you will actually wear your gauges when in public, and not allow your stretched out lobes to just dangle there, like, all twisty and shoulder length--”

“Oh my god,” Tessa says, and grimaces, because she can see it, and she doesn’t want to.

“--right in front of my face for ninety minutes at nine in the morning, and now I keep dreaming about, like, worms eating my head and I’m going to fail the class because I can’t focus during lecture.”  Something rustles on Jordan’s end of the line. “I swear to god, Tessa. It’s like _Tremors_ , only there’s no Reba McEntire with an arsenal ready to take the worms out.”

“Is that a movie?” Tessa asks, mostly because she knows it’ll wind Jordan up.  It helps, just listening to Jordan talk. If she can just keep focusing on something else, she’ll be fine.

“ _Is that a movie,”_ Jordan repeats, outraged, and then says, “Wait, why did you even call me? Usually you won’t shut up about training or whatever,” and this is why she shouldn’t have called, because Jordan always just _knows._

“I just wanted to see what was going on with you,” Tessa says, and it sounds weak even to her ears. “It’s been a couple days since I called--”

“I’m not an idiot,” Jordan says, “don’t lie to me.  What’s up,” and Tessa chews on her bottom lip and tries to figure out how to ask what you’re supposed to do when you’re pretty sure your skating partner, who you’ve known since before you realized the tooth fairy was a means of domestic wealth redistribution, has started having sex and now you can’t stop thinking about it. Him.

Both.

Jordan sighs into the silence.  “What did he do,” she says, because obviously that’s what Tessa’s calling about: what Scott has done this time.

“Nothing,” she says, emphatic, and when Jordan says, “Bullshit,” Tessa closes her eyes-- like that will make it easier-- and says, “I think he’s having sex?”

“What, right this second?” Jordan asks, because of course she does.

“No,” Tessa bites out, because now she’s going to be _wondering_.  “Like, in general.”

Jordan hums, speculative.  “I’m not surprised,” she says, then, “Is he being a jerk about it?” and Tessa shakes her head, because she absolutely can’t imagine that.  Scott can be a jerk about almost everything, but he’s always really nice to his girlfriends, even when they break up.

“Tessa?” Jordan says, and now she sounds worried.

“No,” Tessa says.  “No, he’s not being a jerk about it.  He hasn’t said anything at all. I just think,” she tries to explain.  Stops. Tries again, uncertain: “His hands are different now? When we do lifts.”

“Explain that,” Jordan says, and there’s something dangerous in her voice, Tessa thinks.  She doesn’t sound slow and relaxed anymore.

“He’s not doing anything!” Tessa says, rushed, because she’s had a lot of conversations with her mother and coaches over the past decade about where hands should be, and where they shouldn’t be without permission, and the difference between athletics and abuse, and she does not want Jordan to think _anything_ like that about Scott.  “Jordan, I swear to god, it’s nothing like that,” she says, firm.  “It’s just-- it’s like he knows what he’s doing now, I think? With his hands, and stuff,” because she can’t explain how she just _knew_ , based on the sudden confidence of his grip around her thigh like a brand, hot and permanent.  “And it’s just _weird,_ ” she trails off, because it is.  It’s so weird. She can’t stop thinking about it.

There’s an odd pause, and then Jordan starts laughing.  “Oh my god, Tessa,” she says, “Oh my god, don’t tell me you only just realized Scotty’s _hot,_ ” and Tessa considers hanging up.

“I hate you,” she says instead, and she really means it.  She can’t think about Scott and hot in the same sentence. Just-- no. She has kinetics homework to do; she doesn’t need this aggravation. “I’m going to hang up,” she says.

“No, wait,” Jordan says, sounding apologetic and sly.  “I just really thought you’d already realized that, like, Scott’s not terrible to look at, based on your completely embarrassing crush from year nine--”

“We’re not talking about this,” Tessa warns, her ears growing warm. She regrets everything.

“--but if you didn’t realize that he was hot then,” and Jordan sounds delighted by this, “that means you were all about his personality, which is just straight-up _tragic_ , oh my god--”

Tessa hangs up.  The phone starts buzzing immediately as Jordan tries to call her back, so she shoves it underneath a pillow.  If she can’t hear it, no one’s calling. And if she doesn’t think about Scott--

If she doesn’t think--

She grabs another pillow and buries her head underneath it.  If no one hears her scream, it still counts as a quiet, civilized crisis, right?

Right.  

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to join me for a weekly support group for People Who Feel Weird About RPF But Keep Writing It Anyway over on tumblr. Same username over there.


End file.
